Improved Balloon to Champion Euro-centrism!

This impressive balloon was designed by Theodore Sivel, a prominent German aeronaut. The flight took place in 1873, and the balloon reached the elevation of 9,000 feet. Mr. Sivel modestly described his achievement as “the grandest experiment ever undertaken in this line.” Curiously, the five individual balloons of this airborne apparatus had names. The biggest one in the middle was called Europe, with the remaining four representing Africa, America, Asia and Australia (Scientific American, 1874).